The Uninvited

By Dorothy Macardle and Luke Gibbons

Brother and sister Roderick and Pamela Fitzgerald flee their busy London lives for the beautiful but stormy Devon coastline. They are drawn to the suspiciously inexpensive Cliff End, feared amongst locals as a place of disturbance and ill omen. Gradually, the Fitzgeralds learn of the mysterious deaths of Mary Meredith and another strange young woman. Together, they must unravel the mystery of Cliff End's uncanny past - and keep the troubled young Stella, who was raised in the house as a baby, from returning to the nursery where something waits to tuck her in at night... The second in Tramp's Recovered Voices series, this strange, bone-chilling story was first published in 1942, and was adapted for the screen as one of Hollywood's most successful ghost stories, The Uninvited, in 1944.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tramp Press
• Release date: Nov 13, 2015
• ISBN: 9780993459252

Book preview

Chapter I

CLIFF END

THE CAR SEEMED to share the buoyancy of the morning, humming along over the moorland roads and taking the twisting hills in top.

I was glad we had taken down the hood. There was a heady exuberance in the air. The sky was a high, light haze; the trees and hedges were sprayed with young colour; birds were busy and lambs ran lolloping and bleating about the hills. Pamela pulled her hat off, otherwise the breeze would have sent it flying. It was her doing that we were on the road before nine in the morning and heading for the sea.

That in itself was reckless, for we were two hundred miles from London already and I had to be at my desk by twelve the next day. Even on a paper as smoothly run as Tomorrow and with a chief as easy-going as Marriott, you cannot stretch a weekend farther than from four o’clock on Friday to Tuesday at noon. But I was not going back to town without saluting the Atlantic from those famous North Devon cliffs, and Pamela had insisted on seeing this house.

She was a little delirious with enjoyment of the spring morning, and talkative. ‘It’s going to be warm. Roddy, look at that blackthorn; it’s dazzling! I feel lucky this morning – do you? Isn’t Marathon a gorgeous name?’

‘And that,’ I replied, ‘is your reason for wanting to see it! You ought to have discovered by this time how much innkeepers’ recommendations are worth! If it was any good it would be on the agents’ lists.’

‘Agents’ lists!’ Her tone washed them out. It was true they had not proved much use. ‘This must be the village. Turn to the right.’

I turned off the tarmac on to a steep by-road; the Hillman topped the rise easily, and we came in sight at the same moment of the house and the sea. I drew up because ‘Marathon’ was written on the gateposts, but I did not stir from the wheel: the house was a drab barrack with its face to the northeast and a blind back to that superb view.

Pamela’s first ‘Oh!’ was a cry of elation, her second a groan of disgust. She sat glowering. ‘And Marathon looks on the sea!’ she quoted wrathfully: ‘Exactly what it doesn’t do! The man who built a house like that in a place like this should be condemned to haunt it for all eternity.’

I drove on to where the road dwindled and a track led across the down to the edge of the cliff. There lay the ocean – or is it still the Bristol Channel here? No matter. I strode over the turf; Pamela sprinted ahead of me and pulled up – she is temperamentally incapable of keeping away from edges; I followed and grabbed her elbow, digging my heels in, tensed against the blare of the wind.

The bay seemed to laugh at us, delighting in our surprise. The water glittered and danced in the windy light; to right and left the coast swept in broken arcs, its rocks hewn into caves, arches and islets, the cliffs topped with yellow gorse; there were green headlands near, silvery and hazy headlands beyond, and Lundy lay far out, like a giant’s barge. Every hour of every day the scene would be changing, taking new colours and forms. I felt that I had been hungry since childhood for that view and would hunger for it for the rest of my life.

Pamela said bitterly, ‘If only there had been no house in this place!’

We turned away and walked back to the car, drove down to the main road, studied the map and set a course for the shortest route to London, the golden mood of the morning dead.

We were sunk in silence, our thoughts pursuing the same path to the same dismal conclusion: our hopes had been preposterous; we were fools.

At length I spoke: ‘We have just got to make up our minds that what we want doesn’t exist.’

Pamela did not reply for a while, then in a subdued voice she said, ‘We could make something of the farm at Ghyll Bridge.’

‘My dear girl, you would spend your entire day filling lamps and bath-tubs, and I would be hewing wood and drawing water instead of getting on with the book! Where would be the sense in that? No,’ I persisted ruthlessly: ‘a mouldering old mill in Sleepy Hollow or a bright Linga-Longa or Cotta-Bunga slightly detached, we could have for our money, but a plain, honest house, with space, light, air, services, and privacy, England no longer offers to the likes of you and me.’

‘We could have Littlewood for three years.’

‘And paint and carpenter, plant and dig, every spare minute, for somebody else! I have told you: lease a place I will not.’

Pamela fell silent and I was dismayed. She had caught her lower lip between her teeth – a sure sign, in childhood, that she was going to cry. To my relief, she laughed. She said, ‘We’ll have to advertise for a haunted house.’

It was too bad. I had been thankful to see Pamela set her heart on anything and now this scheme, which had promised escape, solution, and fresh adventure to both of us, seemed doomed to fail.

SIX YEARS of nursing our father had changed Pamela a great deal. When he died I had persuaded her to come and live with me in Bloomsbury, thinking she might find new interests and regain her spirits in my lively bachelor flat. The plan had appeared sound enough but it had not worked so well. Actually, most of the people who crowded around were not altogether congenial either to her or me. Then there was my affair with Lorette. It was obvious, apparently, to everyone but myself, that Lorette would prefer the spotlight with Johnny Mayhew to anything I could offer her, in the end. Pamela worried lest she would marry me and lest she would not and went all hypersensitive and self-effacing just when her school-girl form, her rampageous imagination and capacity for ridiculing sentiment, might have helped. She started a course in library work but realised that this would only lead her from one cloistered life to another and gave it up. Finally she told me that she wanted country life and was thinking of buying a cottage and growing raspberries, sharing with Gillian Long.

I at once realised several things – that London had let us down; that the sooner I snapped out of Lorette’s orbit the better; that I would miss Pamela; that my book on the British censorship, designed to cause that animal’s death by exposure, was not progressing, and that I could now earn as much by freelance writing as on the staff of Tomorrow. I said, ‘Why not share one with me?’

Her delight was flattering; enthusiasm seized us; the plan expanded. A complete break with town, a life with air, space, and growth in it was what we needed. We knew it, and the search began. This weekend was our fifth defeat.

NOW THE SEA was out of sight; the road ran down between pines and up over moorland; the surface improved. At crossroads, a sign reading ‘Biddlecombe’ indicated one of those villages that run headlong to the sea in cleeves of the Devon hills. This one started with a good-looking inn; I would have liked to try its cider, but recollected that the day was too young.

Pamela began to chatter. ‘How depressing it is to turn one’s back on the West! Why did the ancient races all drive one another westward? And the fairy isles are all in the western seas. And western people have more magic, haven’t they? And music – Oh, Roddy, what an alluring lane! Do just run up it! There must be a grand view from the top!’

‘It will be the same view,’ I grumbled. ‘However, if it will get the West out of your system!’

To please her, I backed and turned up a gorse-lined smugglers’ path. It coiled up among rocks and larches; forked, sending a rutted farm-road off to the right, changed to a straggling drive among budding rhododendrons and came out on a small windy plateau high on the cliffs. The view was the same but there was more of it, for here a little headland ended and the sea lay out to the south as well as the west.

Pamela was first out of the car; she rounded a clump of trees to the left but, instead of walking forward, stood, staring, her back to the view. I joined her and saw an empty house.

Stone-built, plain-faced, two-storeyed, so beautifully proportioned that one would have halted to gaze at it anywhere, it stood confronting the bay. A wooded rise sheltered it on the east and on the north was the wind-break of trees.

‘Roddy,’ Pamela said. ‘It’s a house!’

‘So it seems.’

I walked round it. It was a solid structure – Georgian, I thought, with large windows on either side of the door and three windows above. There was a flat-topped, pillared porch with a fanlight over it, and the ground-floor windows were set in shallow arches which repeated the fanlight’s curve. The house faced south. The shape was odd, for its sides were much longer than its frontage, the ground floor projecting at the back with a flat roof. The man who built the house had evidently intended to add rooms upstairs. There was a yard with out-houses, and a stable opened on to the drive. The place had been neglected for years; the storm-shutters which protected the ground-floor windows were denuded of paint and one of them hung askew, and a small greenhouse, built out on the west side, had lost most of its glass. The walls, however, looked sound. The garden beds, which had been made here and there where the out-cropping rock allowed, were matted with weeds and the leafage of pinks; rough lawns, sloping down on two sides to the cliff’s edge, merged with the heather, unkempt; there were clumps of short, fleshy daffodils in the grass, and a forsythia laid sparse yellow bells over a windowsill. I walked to the edge. Not a building was in sight except a lighthouse and a coast-guard station away on the left. I listened, and heard only the rumble of the sea, a gull’s cry, and the distant bleating of sheep. The cliff fell steeply to the sea; on the west side, the edge was not a hundred yards from the house; there was a little creek here, and at its inner point stood a dead, twisted tree. Standing there, I looked down and saw, beyond juts and shelving rocks, the amber gleam of a minute beach. I was seized by covetousness. One could run down by some zig-zag track in the rocks and swim. There were men who could own places like this …

‘Roddy, Roddy,’ Pamela was calling. ‘It’s for sale!’

She was in the drive, near the stable. She had found a faded placard, half-hidden by shrubs.

‘It’s worth twice our money, derelict as it is: forget it!’ I said,

‘Commander Brooke, Wilmcote, The Avenue, Biddlecombe,’ Pamela read. ‘Roddy, come on!’

WE NOW HAD good reason to call at The Golden Hind. I thirsted for cider, but it was early, and we were in England; its coffee was vile. The motherly body who served us showed the liveliest interest when we asked the way to Wilmcote and stood watching us from her door-step when we left. Pamela laughed, ‘She sees a prospective customer in you.’

The wooded estate which included The Avenue could be seen on the slope of the hill to the north on the opposite side of the village from Cliff End. One could walk through the village and climb a steep path to the right, or drive along the main road and take a winding course round the hill.

The village allured us; one could see down the steep, straggling street to the small wharf at the end where fishermen were busy with boats and nets; the whole place had a fine, sea-weedy smell; but we were torn with impatience and drove off.

Very trim, very ship-shape, Wilmcote appeared, with its clipped hedge, edgings of box, looped muslin curtains, and knocker of polished brass.

When I had rung the bell I suddenly felt embarrassed, realising that it was scarcely ten o’clock. The door was opened quickly but not, as one would have expected, by a neat maid. The girl who looked at us with dismayed dark eyes had her hair enveloped in a turban of pink towelling, and her cheeks were pink from the heat of a fire; the effect was charming and I smiled; this made her flush more deeply and she asked us quickly to come in. We murmured apologies for coming so early, and she accepted them with a grave mandarin nod.

‘I thought it was our daily maid; you must please excuse me,’ she said.

She looked a child, but her manner would have been appropriate in a hostess of thirty.

‘Quite by chance,’ Pamela told her, ‘we have seen the house called Cliff End. We would like to look over it if we may have the key.’

‘My grandfather is out; I am sorry,’ the girl answered politely. And then her face came to life with a look of almost incredulous excitement.

‘Oh,’ she breathed, looking from me to Pamela and back again, ‘you are going over the house?’

‘If we may,’ Pamela replied.

‘I have no idea where the key is!’ She spoke despairingly then reflected and added, ‘But I will find it. Forgive me if it takes a little time. Won’t you wait in here?’

She left us in a small, formal dining-room but came back very soon with a key. It was large and rusty.

‘I think this must be it. I expect you may have it. Or could you possibly wait?’

She looked a little worried. I explained that we had a day’s driving before us and were anxious to lose no time. As though the decision were a serious one, she handed me the key.

‘Take it. I will explain.’

She heaved a sigh of frustration. ‘I can’t possibly come with you because I have just washed my hair. What a misfortune!’

‘Don’t let us keep you in a draught!’ Pamela said anxiously. Again came that smile, a little surprised, and a glance, frank, yet shy, into Pamela’s eyes. I felt, when the door was closed behind us, that she sent longing thoughts after us and that it was rather a misfortune that she had just washed her hair.

THE KEY would not turn in the lock of the front door. Walking along the east side of the house, under the hillside that rose close to its windows, we found a small door and this, with much creaking and sticking, let us in. We passed through a scullery to a big flagged kitchen. It was dim, for the windows were overshadowed by the rising ground and were caked with dust. Every corner, the sink, the taps, and the piping were festooned and canopied with cobwebs cradling dust. But the room was wired for electricity, had a generous sink and boiler, and, Pamela thought, a tolerable range.

‘Not labour-saving,’ she pronounced, ‘spacious, however: room for Lizzie and her cat.’

This was quite a point. Lizzie Flynn had cooked for us from the time when I was seventeen and Pamela eleven until we gave up the Wimbledon house. She had comforted Pamela when our mother died, trained her to take the mistress’s place, and stood between her and father’s tantrums. I had found them mingling their tears in the kitchen when some ambitious concoction had been sent untasted away. Lizzie had sworn, when we parted, that she would come back to Pamela at any time, to any part of the world, provided her ginger cat might come too. And Lizzie required space.

‘These would appeal to her!’ Pamela was looking into larders and pantries, a dairy, a wash-house, and two or three store-rooms which opened off a passage behind the kitchen, taking up the space under the flat roof.

We cast hasty glances into these and the servant’s bedroom and hurried to the front of the house. A wide corridor led us straight to the front door. Standing with our backs to the door, we looked at the hall and stairs with delight. It was a fine entrance, broad, balanced, ample – remarkably so for such a small house. The stairs were shallow and had a mahogany banister which curved gracefully on the upstairs landing, doubling back along the corridor to the left.

At the foot of the stairs, on our right, was a door with good, simple lines, and one exactly similar faced it across the width of the hall.

‘Elegant!’ Pamela exclaimed, opening the door on the right.

This would be the dining-room. It was almost dark, the shutters only letting in thin blades of light, but one could see that it was a long room, high-ceilinged, with a beautiful marble mantelpiece. The south window would look over the bay, and the window in the east wall had been set forward to escape the shadow of the knoll. What a room to breakfast in!

‘Heavy silk curtains,’ Pamela was murmuring; ‘ivory paint; a Wedgwood frieze; an old refectory table; the Waterford glass.’

I crossed the wide hall to the door opposite, opened it, and stood silent. I had seen no lovelier room. It was in a submarine dimness, but I could see the perfect shape of the room, the beauty of the cornices and of the mantelpiece; I could imagine it with its windows open, all the lucent charm of sea and moorland flowing in.

Pamela, standing beside me, drew a deep breath. ‘The divine proportion, surely?’ she murmured.

The room was a pool of peace; our footsteps, loud on the parquet, violated its ancient quiet. Here, nothing that would disturb or frustrate the mind’s creative impulse would intrude. I felt that I could beggar myself to live here, but I did not tell Pamela that.

Mute with excitement, Pamela ran upstairs and I followed. She stood at the landing window looking over the radiant bay. I opened a door on my right. Here, over the drawing-room, were two rooms with a communicating door. Unexpectedly, the front room was the smaller; the other was almost square; from its windows I looked westward over that magnificent broken coast and the open sea. In the foreground the dead tree, all its boughs grown inward, made a black, fantastic figure against the blue sheen of the water. I said aloud, without turning: ‘I want this view.’

‘You may have it,’ Pamela called back, exultant. ‘I want this room!’

I found her in the room opposite which, like the dining-room, had windows east and south. Sunlight and sea-light danced on ceiling and walls.

‘Farewell, thou art too dear for my possessing!’ she sighed.

I looked into the room behind it, which opened near the head of the stairs, and called to her: ‘Don’t despair: here’s the snag!’

The east window had been blocked up, and a very large window in the north wall looked over the flat roof to the yard. The brick fireplace was much too small; the built-in closets too narrow and deep. And the room struck cold. It was dim, graceless, wholly without charm.

‘Somebody’s studio,’ Pamela said. ‘I would hate to be a painter and live out of the sun. The spiders like it, don’t they? It would have to be the guest-room, just.’

I jeered at her notion of hospitality.

‘It’s you and me and Lizzie who matter,’ she contended, ‘and you must have a study. Lizzie will have to sleep downstairs.’

The bedroom accommodation ended here; other doors on the landing revealed a large bathroom, linen-presses, and a sort of lumber-room with a ladder to the attic, and that was all.

‘It is really a small house, isn’t it?’ Pamela said wistfully. Her face was taut, as if with hunger; she wanted it; so did I.

‘An architect’s plan,’ I said, summing up; ‘electricity; plumbing; in very fair condition; no tennis-lawn and no room for one; telephone would have to be brought from goodness knows where; too isolated for most tastes: there’s a bare possibility – an almost totally naked one – that it might be within our price.’

She stood immobile for a moment as though she were listening.

‘I believe it is,’ she said; ‘I believe we are going to live here – Come and see!’

Chapter II

THE COMMANDER

THE COMMANDER was at home. The maid who took my card in returned at once and showed us into an office-like room at the back. He stood waiting for us, a man not far from seventy, with white hair and beard, his head erect and blue eyes alight. He had the air of a man going into battle. He said, ‘Good morning, Mr Fitzgerald,’ bowed to Pamela, motioned us into leather armchairs, and, sitting in his swivel desk-chair, waited for me to begin.

He listened to my questions studiously and replied with precision. Yes: except for a brief period, the house had been untenanted for some time – for fifteen years, in fact. Yes, no doubt, the roof and out-buildings would need repair. It was a well-built house, however; the man who designed it had been an architect and had built it for himself.

‘Five generations of my family,’ Commander Brooke said, almost defiantly, ‘lived there in health and comfort. Considerable sums were spent on improvements about twenty-four years ago.’

It was for sale, freehold; the rates were negligible; the property included the knoll on the east side and part of the larch-grove, also the sandy beach from which bathing was safe at low tide.

‘And the price?’

‘In its present condition, fourteen hundred.’

I shook my head. I saw Pamela’s face change and the old man glance at her keenly from under his jutting brows. He seemed to be studying her.

‘Perhaps the Commander would consider an offer?’ she said.

I offered a thousand, pointing out that repairs would certainly cost a good deal. He sat absorbed in thought and did not reply for a moment, then he looked up, saying, ‘I beg your pardon?’ I repeated my offer, and he said, impatiently, ‘Yes, yes, that would do …’

His tone was so inconclusive that I wondered what there was that would not do – Pamela or myself, perhaps?

‘You would sell for a thousand?’ I asked, not certain that he had understood me. He sat motionless for a moment, his face stony, and then, like a man forcing himself to some ordeal, said, ‘Yes.’

Pamela opened incredulous eyes and relaxed with an immense sigh. I had as much as I could do to keep a business-like rigidity and remember to say that I would like to examine the place thoroughly with an architect and have his report. Still abstracted in his manner, the Commander told me that there was a good man at Barnstaple, he believed, and, telephoning to a bank there, secured the address. His telephone was at my disposal, if I would like to make arrangements at once. ‘A report will commit us to nothing,’ he added, as though thinking aloud.

I reflected that it would commit me to the architect’s fee, but agreed. The reluctance in the old man’s manner made me nervously anxious to secure the house before he should change his mind. One could not fail to see that the whole transaction was distasteful to him and that our enquiries affected him as an intrusion. I wondered whether he disliked the house or disliked letting it go.

I telephoned. Good! Mr Richards could run over from Barnstaple; he could be at Cliff End at three o’clock. No, he was, sorry; he could not make it earlier than that. I asked Pamela how she would feel about driving most of the night; she said that she would enjoy it, and the appointment was made.

As I hung up the receiver I caught the Commander’s eyes fixed on me searchingly. I felt diminished under that luminous blue gaze. His face, narrow and aquiline, stamped with experience and authority, had a look which, I imagined, it wore rarely – a look of doubt. Was there some defect in the house which he feared the architect might expose? No, the man had rectitude in every line of him; it was not that. Was he uneasy about the sort of people with whom he had to deal? I returned, his stare with a frank regard, perhaps a little amused, and, as though reassured, he turned to Pamela and said, with a courteous gesture, ‘May I invite you to drink a glass of sherry?’

He rang, ordered the sherry, and, after a moment’s reflection, told the maid to ask Miss Meredith to come in. The girl goggled at us inquisitively as she left the room: evidently, morning callers were rare at Wilmcote.

While we waited the Commander talked about motoring, which, he said, he had never learnt to enjoy, and about the vehicles of his early days. Pamela responded gaily, and I had time to look around the room. It was not interesting; there were filing cabinets and shelves full of old books; no fire; no flowers; no photographs except of ships; no new books; no papers except some nautical journals and The Times. There was only one work of art in the room, a large portrait in oils over the fireplace, and that was not very good.

Yet, on second thoughts, that picture had quality; one would remember it. It was the portrait of a girl. The artist had scamped labour on the hands and hair and white muslin dress, but he had painted a living face.

The girl was beautiful – fair-skinned, fair-haired, with large, ice-blue eyes. Her hair was piled high above a noble forehead; her mouth was set in sweet, stern lines; she held her hands like a nun’s, crossed on her breast. I could imagine her pictured so in a stained-glass window with a halo about her head.

The Commander, catching the direction of my gaze, became silent. I hesitated to speak of the picture and there was an awkward pause. It was a relief when the girl of the turban came in, with decanter and glasses on a tray. The old man introduced us.

‘This is my granddaughter, Miss Meredith: Miss Pamela Fitzgerald; Mr Roderick Fitzgerald. They are considering purchasing Cliff End. The house,’ he explained to us, ‘actually belongs to her.’

A flash of excitement lit the girl’s composed little face, but she bowed formally, setting down the tray. Her hand shook slightly as she gave us our glasses. She looked seriously at Pamela and then at me.

‘I hope you will be lucky in it,’ she said.

What an odd, well-behaved child! No, not a child! Now, wearing a brown dress with cream collar and cuffs, her brown hair parted and held as smooth by combs as springy curls would allow, she looked quite seventeen. Her manner would still have served for thirty or more, but not all the time. Again she rested that frank, searching gaze on Pamela’s face, transferred it to mine, and smiled.

‘I believe you will!’ she exclaimed, and very slightly saluted with her glass before she drank.

We told her how charmed we were by the house, the sunny rooms, and the view. She listened greedily.

‘It must be fabulous,’ she sighed.

The Commander turned to her. ‘How’s the commissariat, Stella? Can we give ourselves the pleasure of inviting our new acquaintances to lunch?’

‘Yes! Yes!’ she responded eagerly. ‘That would give us great pleasure,’ she amended, under her guardian’s repressive glance. ‘If you will excuse a very simple meal.’

We accepted, and Pamela was conducted to Stella’s room.

The Commander offered me a cigarette. There was something about which he wanted to speak to me alone; that was evident. He began awkwardly.

‘Miss Fitzgerald looks a little delicate. The air here should do her good.’

That, I conceded, was one of our reasons for leaving London.

‘Yes,’ he went on reflectively; ‘a delicate, hypersensitive type.’

‘Scarcely hypersensitive,’ I protested.

‘I beg your pardon.’ He was sincerely apologetic; the last man willingly to commit an impertinence, I felt sure.

‘The air at Cliff End,’ I suggested, ‘must be superb.’

He was abstracted and did not reply directly. ‘Does wind affect her?’ he asked.

‘Not too much; we both rather enjoy a storm.’

‘It makes melancholy sounds,’ he murmured, ‘blowing over the moors.’

‘That won’t worry us.’

‘It is, of course, a lonely spot …’

‘A writer has to be able to be alone, and Pamela makes friends …’

I broke off. What was the old man driving at? I thought I had better let him come out with it, and waited. He was tapping his blotter with an ivory paper-knife, as if giving some imperative signal. At last, he spoke abruptly:

‘A clear duty is imposed on me,’ he said.

‘Yes?’

‘I told you that six years ago the house was occupied for some months. I must inform you that the people did not stay very long. They experienced disturbances there.’

‘Experienced!’ I smiled at his word; most men in his place would have said ‘fancied,’ or ‘imagined,’ if they had thought it necessary to mention the matter at all.

‘As long as the cause was not rats,’ I replied lightly.

‘It was not rats.’

I waited. Was he going to tell me any more? Obviously not. His mouth set in a firm line; he was looking out at a cat on the garden wall.

‘I felt obliged to mention it,’ he said.

So, I was to take it or leave it at that.

‘A story like that will be quite an attraction to my sister,’ I told him.

‘Indeed?’

He turned to his desk and wrote down for me the address of the solicitor in London who had charge of all business concerning the house. I could see that he wanted to be rid of everything connected with it, and I admired, the more, the integrity which had forced him to warn me about ‘disturbances’ and the delicate consideration which had made him, rather than mention these before Pamela, reluctantly invite us to lunch. A complex personality – hard on himself. Was his hand heavy, I wondered, on the girl?

Conversation with him was difficult in this mood, and I rose with too much alacrity when Stella returned, summoning us to lunch.

We had a delicious meal: chicken with asparagus and potato croquettes was followed by a trifle on which the custard was still warm, with ratafia biscuits lavishly scattered on it. The Commander poured an excellent hock. At table he exerted himself to be affable and entertained us with stories of the ways and characters of Devonshire men; under his dry, sometimes caustic, humour, his strong regard for these men could be felt. Pamela, who was in tremendous spirits, questioned him with lively interest.

‘Is there a Celtic strain in North Devon?’ she asked. ‘You would expect it, wouldn’t you, here, between Cornwall and Wales?’

‘None!’ he replied rather sharply. ‘The Welsh are an entirely different race.’

And an inferior one, his tone conveyed.

Stella, who was seated at my right, looked at her plate and visibly turned her mind on some other track. Was she very reserved or very transparent? I could not guess. Her face, firmly moulded on delicate bones, with a wide smooth forehead and hollowed temples, had a reticent look; yet little shadows and contractions, continually in play, betrayed what lips and eyes might conceal. In our honour, she had replaced the comb in her hair with a velvet ribbon and hung round her neck a locket on a thin gold chain. Our visit was an exciting interlude and the sale of her house a climactic event. She would have asked a thousand questions had good manners allowed. Now, as though trying to grasp some elusive memory, she half-closed her eyes. She opened them suddenly, exclaiming, ‘Pamela Fitzgerald!’

‘Stella!’

The tone expressed horror; the girl paled under the Commander’s freezing stare; tears brimmed her eyes and her throat worked; she was unable to

Reviews for The Uninvited

[sturlington_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An old-fashioned ghost story originally published in 1942, The Uninvited for me was not particularly scary, but rather strangely charming. It was quite talky--no surprise that the narrator is a playwright--and I could easily imagine the spirited, oh-so-British young people at the center of the story. The setting of an abandoned house on a cliff overlooking the sea with its maze of rooms and windswept garden comes alive wonderfully through Macardle's prose. I have not seen the movie, but it's obvious how well this book would translate to film.

[deltaqueen50 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The Uninvited by Dorothy Macardle is a classic haunted house story that was originally published in 1942 and was adapted to film in 1944. Looking to escape the stress and demands of life in London, brother and sister, Roderick and Pamela Fitzgerald, find the perfect house on the Devon coast. The house had been empty for some time and the price was right so they snapped it up not knowing that they were soon to be plagued by paranormal events. The house was the site of the deaths of two women fifteen years ago. A young wife and mother, Mary, and her artist husband’s model and mistress, Carmel. Events surrounding the deaths of these women are murky but it appears that neither one actually died a natural death. Mary’s young daughter, Stella, still lives nearby and is happy and excited to be able to visit the house she was born in. Unfortunately, Stella seems to be the trigger for the apparitions, with one wanting to guard her while the other seems intent on driving Stella to her death.The Uninvited is one of my favourite ghostly movies and I wasn’t disappointed with the book either. All the classic events of a haunting, from extreme coldness, sounds of sobbing in the night, particular rooms where no one dares to spend much time, and visual sightings that root one to the spot are all scattered throughout the book. The story has a timeless quality and, at first, the disturbances are subtle and easy to dismiss, but as the book goes on, the atmosphere gets darker and darker and extreme danger comes to the forefront. If you enjoy a good but not over-done ghost story that is well written and solidly plotted, I recommend giving The Uninvited a try.

[klmesoftly · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Excellent classic haunted house novel by an Irish feminist. It took me a few chapters to get hooked but by chapter 8 I was unable to put it down!

[carl_alves_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

It’s often hard to judge novels that were written a long time ago, because you almost have to put yourself in the mindset of the reader from that era. As a current reader, I have read many ghost/haunted house novels, and have probably watched as many movies with those topics. For me, this just didn’t standout in any way. Set in England in the nineteenth century, Roddy and Pamela are brothers and sisters, who move into a house that is apparently haunted. Stella, who is Roddy’s love interest and used to live in the house, is particularly affected by this, and it leads them to suspect that the ghost is that of her mother.The novel is part ghost story, part mystery, part romance, but doesn’t really succeed or fail as any of those things. The ghost elements were fairly generic. The mystery element was just okay with nothing earth shattering involved, and the romance left me ambivalent. Now, had I been a reader in the 40s when this came out, then this type of ghost story may have been a bit more interesting. I don’t want to sound overly negative. It’s not that it was a terrible novel. For me it was just okay with nothing about it to separate it from other similar novels that I have read.Carl Alves – author of Battle of the Soul

[wyvernfriend · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

would probably be different today but not much. I'd say there would be more or less supernatural elements to the story and the end was a little flat, I didn't really feal a real relationship build, but overall this stands up well against the test of time. Siblings Roderick and Pamela Fitzgerald leave London for the Devon Coastline and fall in love with Cliff End, a house with a disturbed history, the unravelling of that history brings them face to face with ghosts, and the aftermath of things that people did that left echoes. Originally published in 1942 this is more psychological than paranormal and the troubles are believable. It's an interesting look at how some people create their own ghosts and troubles by trying to make things fit into their own moulds.Worth a read.

[deankut · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What a wonderful ghost-story involving a beautiful haunted house overlooking the ocean. Miss Macardle's prose-as anciently arcane as it has been for this modern mainstream reader-brilliantly draws the reader into the story as if the laws of time had no boundary. I was gasping along with the ghosts!

What's better than an engaging story? One with a twist! I want to thank a dear friend, Jayson, for this gifted read! I thoroughly enjoyed it and it has helped advance the prose of my current work set back in time. Now I look forward to watching the accompanying movie that was gifted along with this book!

[dorisannn · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was the first book I read in which there was a "real" ghost and not someone's trick and it really scared me. Perhaps I just like remember myself when young reading the book. The movie is also good with its beautiful theme, "Stella by Starlight."Also liked this author's THE UNFORESEEN

[janerawoof · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A brother, Roddy, [critic, playwright] and his sister, Pamela, leave the bright lights of London and settle on the Cornish coast in an old house Pamela falls in love with. They buy it in spite of the seller's warning them it's haunted by two ghosts, the owner's wife and a nursemaid. The novel is mostly why the ghosts are there and how they are driven out. Shivery, a creepy, eerie read, although somewhat dated in expressions and in the pseudopsychology of the time it was written. Very atmospheric.

[noveltea_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I might have enjoyed this novel more if I hadn't previously read something that gave away the specific nature of this particular haunting. That could very well be what made the characters seem to me to be really slow on the uptake. But even without the spoiler I would've been annoyed by the dated if not downright pseudo psychology bandied about, and by all the time the narrator spends ignoring his haunted house in order to go on and on in a terribly precious way about his arty/intellectual vocation and friends. Still, I feel like it deserves 3 stars, so I must've liked the book more than I didn't like it.

[kattermole · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Lovely cozy read.

[suzanneadair · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A brother and sister weary of the London scene buy an outwardly charming fixer-upper on the Devonshire coast, only to find that they have paranormal tenants. They elect to stick it out and figure out why they're haunted. Well before the end of the book, I figured out what the "issue" was that caused the haunting, but it still made for an enjoyable, creepy read. The author's voice was remarkable: lush prose full of British-isms. I got up and made myself a cuppa Darjeeling tea at one point. Had to do it. There's no gore in this book, just oodles of atmosphere. What I found most satisfying was that the brother and sister approached the haunting like a pair of sleuths solving a mystery, so they were active instead of passive. I had to obtain the book via ILL because it's now out of print. What a pity.

[jimd_170002 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a perfect ghost story. No goons with knives or chainsaws here. Just an old house on the cliffs by the sea, eerie presences and a mystery from the past. What more could you want?